Sten gets a running start at his new job

His first council informal and a meeting with the mayor come even before his swearing in

Tuesday, November 12, 1996

By Michele Parente
The Oregonian

Today will be an eventful day for Erik Sten.

At 9 a.m., the commissioner-elect will meet with Mayor Vera Katz to receive his bureau assignments. From there he'll attend his first council informal, an hourlong city-Multnomah County conference on the fiscal impact of Ballot Measure 47.

At noon, Sten, 29, will be sworn in as commissioner, filling the remainder of U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer's unexpired term.

The swearing-in ceremony is open to the public and will be held at Sten's alma mater, Irvington Elementary School, 1320 N.E. Brazee St.

On Wednesday, Sten will take his place on the five-member council when it holds its regular weekly meeting.

Sten has already hit the ground running. Even though City Hall was closed Monday for the holiday, Sten showed up at his seventh-floor office with a stack of papers under his arm marked "To Be Filed."

Transition team chief of staff Bob Durston recorded Sten's first foray into his office on film, while staffer and former campaign aide Marshall Runkel gave his boss a tour of their new digs.

Sten's phone and fax machine are already up and running. The public can call Portland's newest commissioner at 823-3589 and fax him at 823-3596. Sten shouldn't expect his bureau portfolio to be bulging just yet. The mayor's chief of staff, Sam Adams, says Katz will likely wait to give Sten his key assignments until January, when commissioner-elect Jim Francesconi also takes office.

Adams explains that reshuffling the bureaus twice in two months would be too disruptive. So what's the first thing a City Council candidate does when he wins an election? Not go to Disneyland, it seems.

The morning after beating Chuck Duffy in last week's election, Sten was pulling up lawn signs.

"It's such a concrete act that says the campaign's over," Sten said. "It's kind of a pleasure to go around and take them down." But he added that it did feel odd, given that he'd been worried about keeping them up just the day before.

Francesconi had to wait three days, until Friday night, before he was even declared the winner in his race against Gail Shibley. No wonder the first thing he did was party.

Soon after the results of his race were final, Francesconi, 44, and his wife, Shelley, made their way to Montgomery Park, the site of retiring Commissioner Mike Lindberg's farewell bash.

With all the attention surrounding him, you'd have thought the party was being thrown for Francesconi, and not the man he was elected to replace. Speaking of Lindberg, anyone who is anyone in Portland politics made an appearance at the veteran commissioner's party Friday night. Hundreds partied to nonstop blues music — Lindberg's favorite — well into the wee hours.

No surprise that at a soiree for a politician, the buzz around the room centered on last week's election, particularly on the passage of Ballot Measure 47.

With the budget headaches that are sure to accompany the property tax limitation measure, more than one party attendee cracked that Lindberg is getting out of City Hall at the right time.

Topping many people's list of best moment of the night: Lindberg taking the stage to belt out some blues.

On more than a few people's list for least favorite: former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's long (and some said long-winded) tribute to Lindberg. Are there more parties on the horizon? Looking at the four council candidates' last finance reports before the election would indicate that there might need to be some "Help Candidate X Retire the Campaign Debt" parties.

All four candidates ended their runs in debt, but some are better off than others.

Duffy owes a friend $5,000, while Francesconi owes himself $27,500.

Sten borrowed $16,000 from four supporters.

Shibley seems to have the biggest financial hole to dig out of.

In the last days of the campaign she borrowed $12,000 on top of the $27,000 in outstanding loans she was already carrying, including $25,000 from her partner, Kelly Rogers.